Henley Audio have announced the UK introduction of the Klipsch® HP-3 headphones and Heritage Headphone Amplifier. After a UK unveiling at Sound & Vision, The Bristol Show in early 2018, the new flagship headphones and matching amplifier are now available.

Klipsch have long held reputation for their headphone designs, but they undoubtedly built their name in the audio sector with their Heritage line of speakers – such as the flagship Klipschorn, or the more recently announced Forte III. However, company founder Paul W. Klipsch’s first audio experimentation way back in 1919 was with a pair of headphones. To honour that fact, nearly 100 years later, Sr. Manager of Product Development for Klipsch Group Inc., Vlad Grodzinskiy, set to work on “a headphone worthy of the Heritage name”, and he believes of the new HP-3 that: “Acoustically, mechanically and physically this is the most impressive headphone Klipsch has ever created.”

The Klipsch HP-3 headphones are hand-assembled using materials such as die-cast steel, milled wood, premium-grade leathers, and machined aluminium. Features include solid-wood, triple-vented ear cups, angled sheepskin ear pads and a hand-stitched cowhide headband. Klipsch say that: “The acoustics of the Heritage HP-3 headphones are based on the Klipsch sound principles of high efficiency, low distortion, and full range sound. Its semi-open design delivers an accurate, natural sound and refined bass with reduced sound pressure for a seamless musical experience. The HP-3 also features a recessed pair of free-edge KG-520 drivers that mimic the imaging characteristics and ease of drive found in Klipsch’s Heritage speakers”.

HP-3 are driven by a pair of 52mm biodynamic drivers with more than one tesla of magnetic flux density. Using a proprietary mixture of bio-cellulose and inorganic fibre, the biodynamic drivers achieve, say Klipsch, “incredible levels of balance and control throughout the full frequency spectrum. Additionally, the urethane rubber surrounds create a driver that stays solid and rigid, moving like a piston instead of rocking and tilting like typical headphone drivers. This free-edge design further reduces tonal coloration and improves clarity”. The Klipsch Heritage HP-3 headphone is packaged with a custom solid-steel rod headphone stand, short (1.37m) and long (2.5m) detachable braided nylon cables, and a custom-fit ¼” adapter. They are available in three solid-wood finishes – walnut, ebony, and oak. SRP £1,300.00

Though capable of working with most modern headphones, the Heritage Headphone Amplifier is designed to get the best out of the HP-3. Encased in formed aluminium with a genuine walnut veneer finish, and featuring weighted, anodized aluminium switches and knobs, it combines traditional styling with modern digital technologies.

Driven at the core by a high-resolution ES90128K2M ESS Sabre32 Reference digital-to-analogue converter (DAC) capable of handling up-to 192kHz/24-bit PCM sample rates and 11.2MHz DSD, the Heritage Headphone Amplifier features ESS 32-bit HyperStream® DAC architecture and Time Domain Jitter Eliminator technology. .With the built-in purpose chosen amplifier modules, the Heritage Headphone Amplifier also gives you the option to output via the two headphone sockets or it can function as a compact DAC or a pre-amp for a traditional stereo setup thanks to the switchable RCA outputs. It also has additional inputs for Optical, Coaxial and Line-level sources. SRP £520.00.

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